TEXT
FOR DELIVERY: 9:30 A.M., E.D.T.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1995
___________________________________________________________
Advance copies of this statement are made available to the
press under lock-up conditions with the explicit
understanding that the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m.
Eastern time. ____________________________________________
Statement of
Katharine G. Abraham
Commissioner
Bureau of Labor Statistics
before the
Joint Economic Committee
UNITED STATES CONGRESS
August 4, 1995
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
I appreciate this opportunity to provide comments on
the labor market data released this morning.
Payroll employment was little changed in July, at 116.6
million, and the unemployment rate, at 5.7 percent, remained
at about the same level as in the prior month. Payroll job
growth has been considerably weaker in recent months than it
was in the first quarter of the year.
Continued deterioration in manufacturing employment was
a major factor in the weakness of the July payroll job
count. The number of factory jobs fell by 85,000 over the
month and has declined by a total of 188,000 over the past 4
months. Job losses in July were widespread throughout both
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durable and nondurable goods industries. The largest
decline was in transportation equipment, where employment
fell by 20,000; both the motor vehicles and aircraft
industries were affected. The decline in motor vehicles
reflects temporary plant shutdowns, but the loss in aircraft
manufacturing continues a pattern that has persisted for 5
years. There also were continuing losses in the textiles,
apparel, chemicals, and rubber and plastics industries. In
fact, electronics was the only manufacturing industry to
show a job gain in July.
In addition to the job cutbacks, the factory workweek
fell by two-tenths of an hour and has been shortened by
nearly a full hour since January. Factory overtime edged up
by a tenth of an hour in July, at least temporarily halting
a string of steady declines that began early this year.
Employment in the services industry rose by only 60,000
in July; growth in the industry has been relatively weak
since March. Over the month, there were lower than average
job gains in business and health services, the two largest
services industry components. Within business services,
employment in the computer services component has shown the
most strength in recent months, while help supply services
employment has been weak.
Employment in retail trade rose by 54,000 in July and
is up by over 100,000 in the last 2 months, after having
exhibited no net growth in the first 5 months of the year.
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Increases since May have been concentrated in eating and
drinking places. Wholesale trade also added jobs over the
month.
Average hourly earnings of private production or
nonsupervisory workers were up by 7 cents in July, after
rising by 5 cents in June. Increases in hourly earnings had
averaged less than 3 cents a month over the year ended in
May. Because earnings increases are very uneven from month
to month, however, we will need to see additional months'
data before concluding that the underlying growth rate of
this earnings series has changed.
Turning to data from the household survey, the
seasonally adjusted estimates of both total employment and
the labor force rose markedly from their June levels. As
you may recall, the survey had recorded extremely large
declines in these estimates for May, while the June figures
were little changed. Looking at the data over a somewhat
longer period, the survey had shown no growth in either
employment or the labor force over the first half of the
year.
The overall unemployment picture has changed very
little in recent months. The unemployment rate has been in
the 5.6 to 5.8 percent range since April, and the number of
unemployed persons has remained within a narrow range around
7-1/2 million. There also has been little movement in
unemployment rates for the major demographic groups. July
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jobless rates were 4.7 percent for adult men and 5.1 percent
for adult women. The rate for teenagers rose to 18.2
percent and their employment level declined. The
unemployment rate among black workers, at 11.1 percent, was
more than twice as high as the rate for whites, at 4.8
percent. The rate for Hispanics was 8.8 percent.
The number of persons working part time even though
they would have preferred full-time employment totaled 4.4
million in July. There were also about 1.6 million former
jobseekers who reported that they wanted and were available
to take jobs in July, but were not counted as unemployed
because they were no longer seeking work. Of these
"marginally attached" workers, about 450,000 said they were
not looking for work because they felt their job prospects
were poor and hence were classified as discouraged workers.
In summary, payroll employment showed very little
growth in July. While there were small gains in the
service-producing sector, the number of factory jobs fell
for the fourth month in a row. The jobless rate was about
unchanged at 5.7 percent.
My colleagues and I will now be glad to respond to any
questions you may have.